Closing the sale. Asking for a raise. Nailing the big presentation. Of the 2,000 hours you work every year, your success or failure is determined in the couple of dozen crucial hours when you need to bring your absolute best. Will you? The last few minutes before a major challenge can be terrifying. Ever wished you knew how to make sure you ace the make-or-break test, audition, or interview? We often feel the most powerless just before we´re expected to act powerful. As you´ll learn in this life-changing book, practice might make perfect, but perfection is useless if you can´t summon it when it counts. Pulling off a great speech or the pivotal at bat also requires the right kind of mental preparation. In Psyched Up, journalist Daniel McGinn dives into the latest psychological research and interviews athletes, soldiers, entertainers, and others who, despite years of practice and enviable track records, will ultimately be judged on their ability to deliver a solid performance when it´s their turn to shine. For instance, he reveals: How Jerry Seinfeld´s jacket and Stephen Colbert´s pen help them get laughs What General Stanley McChrystal said to Special Forces before they entered the battlefield Why the New England Patriots hired the DJ from the Red Sox to help them win Among other counterintuitive insights, McGinn reveals why trying to calm your backstage jitters can be worse for your performance than channeling it into excitement, how meaningless rituals can do more to prepare you in the final moments than last-minute rehearsal, and how a prescription from your doctor could help you unleash your best skills. Whether you´re a sportsperson or a salesperson, an actor or an entrepreneur, one bad hour can throw away months of hard work. There´s so much conflicting popular advice that we often end up doing the wrong things. McGinn separates t... 1. Language: English. Narrator: Johnathan McClain. Audio sample: http://samples.audible.de/bk/peng/003150/bk_peng_003150_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

In the fall of 1971, when William Rehnquist was nominated to fill an Associate Justice seat on the Supreme Court, the Senate raised no major objections, and a little-known Assistant Attorney General found himself at the pinnacle of the judiciary. It seemed a straightforward choice of a relatively young, academically outstanding and politically seasoned lawyer who shared Richard Nixon´s philosophy of ´´strict constructionism.´´ As Nixon´s White House Counsel John Dean reveals for the first time that the choice was anything but straightforward. The truth is that Nixon´s nomination was the result of a dramatic, Nixonian rollercoaster. Rehnquist was a last-minute longshot who had once been dismissed by Nixon as a ´´clown.´´ Only John Dean -- Rehnquist´s champion at the time -- knows the full, improbable story. Dean´s gripping tale is loaded with revelations such as Nixon´s plan to pack the court by forcing resignations, before his inauguration. Using newly released White House tapes, and thousands of previously unseen documents, Dean puts listeners directly in the Oval Office with Nixon, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Rehnquist, and the candidates they considered. The Rehnquist Choice fills in a long-missing explanation of the making of the man who wrote the majority opinion in Bush v. Gore and presided over the impeachment trial of William Jefferson Clinton. 1. Language: English. Narrator: Michael Rafkin. Audio sample: http://samples.audible.de/bk/sans/005900/bk_sans_005900_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

In the fall of 1971, when William Rehnquist was nominated to fill an Associate Justice seat on the Supreme Court, the Senate raised no major objections, and a little-known Assistant Attorney General found himself at the pinnacle of the judiciary. It seemed a straightforward choice of a relatively young, academically outstanding and politically seasoned lawyer who shared Richard Nixon´s philosophy of "strict constructionism." As Nixon´s White House Counsel, John Dean reveals for the first time that the choice was anything but straightforward. The truth is that Rehnquist´s nomination was the result of a dramatic, Nixonian roller coaster. Rehnquist was a last-minute longshot who had once been dismissed by Nixon as a "clown." Only John Dean - Rehnquist´s champion at the time - knows the full, improbable story. Dean´s gripping tale is loaded with revelations, such as Nixon´s plan to pack the court by forcing resignations - before his inauguration. Using newly released White House tapes, and thousands of previously unseen documents, Dean puts listeners directly in the Oval Office with Nixon, Haldeman, Ehrlichmann, Mitchell, Rehnquist, and the candidates they considered. The Rehnquist Choice fills in a long-missing explanation of the making of the man who wrote the majority opinion in Bush v. Gore and presided over the impeachment trial of William Jefferson Clinton. 1. Language: English. Narrator: Boyd Gaines, John W. Dean. Audio sample: http://samples.audible.de/bk/sans/000329/bk_sans_000329_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

Early on the morning of September 1, 1996, the Israeli military began preparing for a war with Syria they were convinced was imminent. The Israelis had received top-secret intelligence from a Syrian general and informant code-named Red Falcon, recruited 23 years earlier by Mossad spy Yehuda Gil - himself known as ´´the man of a thousand faces.´´ Gil had been the general´s sole handler, the conduit of decades of critical intelligence. But now, on the brink of war, questions arose about who exactly was handling whom. What information was real, and what was a lie? Was Gil, a man of mythic exploits in Israeli intelligence, a hero or a traitor? With exclusive access to Gil and other key figures in one of the greatest intelligence intrigues in modern history, celebrated Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman unravels the incredible true story of the Yehuda Gil affair. Bergman´s unprecedented reporting takes him to the heart of Israel´s shadowy spy agencies, arguments at the highest levels of a government lurching toward war, and last-minute secret meetings at the CIA and the White House to avert it. At the center of it all is the mystery of Red Falcon, his spymaster handler, and the very nature of deception. 1. Language: English. Narrator: Joel Lovell. Audio sample: http://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/038245/bk_acx0_038245_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.